Slingshot tries to capture the fresh interface and ephemeral photo and video sharing of Snapchat, but its mandatory-participation gimmick is more draconian than fun.

Facebook wants teens to know that it's hip to their Snapchat. Enter Slingshot, the ephemeral photo- and video-sharing app with a twist. Like many other apps, Slingshot doesn't save the videos and images you share, but it does require that you send something in order to unlock those you've received. If you're a fan of Snapchat's ephemeral nature and fresh interface, but didn't find it quite tedious enough, you'll love photo and video sharing app Slingshot, with its trying mandatory-participation gimmick.

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Sling It to Me Snapchat won praise from PCMag for a bold interface that ignored convention. The app wasn't always successful, but it was at least unique. Slingshot borrows some of those design cues with a stripped-down interface: It's basically just a camera viewfinder and inbox, which you access by swiping down.

To shoot, just tap the Shoot button or hold it to film 15 seconds of video. Images and video looked passable on the Samsung Galaxy S5 we used in testing. The controls are simple, with only a flash toggle and the word Selfie. Tapping the latter option toggles between front and rear-facing cameras, but might too embarrassingly literal for some users. Next you have the option to draw on your image, via a brilliantly minimalist interface. Scroll up and down along the right side to select a color, and then left and right to control the size of your digital pen nib. You can also add text to your image, but there are no filters to be found.

That was easy, wasn't it? Everything's safe and familiar so far. But sending that video or photo is actually a bit of a pain. On the share page, a pixelated version of your image waits with a greyed-out Sling button next to it. To send your image or video, you have to look below and select at least one of your contacts, and then go back up and press Sling to send. This up-and-down is very unintuitive and slowed us down at this critical point.

If someone has slung something at you already, it appears as locked on the share screen and at the top of the main screen. Tap the user to send your image and unlock their image. In our testing, we sent several pictures of power adapters and bored expressions simply to unlock others' images.

You can also send a reaction to a picture or video you've unlocked. The screen splits in half, showing your front-facing camera Selfie view to send off a quick reply. Assuming you're answering a message, your recipient does not have to reciprocate to see your response. All of these images—the ones you send, the ones you receive, and your responses—disappear once they've been sent or viewed. Unless, that is, you take a screenshot. Though developers can block screenshots in Android apps, Slingshot allows it. You can save your own Slings by checking Save My Shots in the Settings pane.

Slinging BlindActually finding people to Sling is more challenging than we expected. If any of your contacts are already using Slingshot, they automatically appear in the share screen. Having your contacts scraped is optional on the iPhone version, but seems unavoidable on Android. You can also send an SMS message to anyone in your contacts, but that will only let them sign up for the service. They still have to seek you out. To our surprise, very few of our Facebook friends have linked their accounts to Slingshot. This does not bode well for the big blue social network's foray into sexting ephemeral sharing.

If you know your friends' Slingshot usernames, you can simply search for them. Or, as we did in testing, you can simply type in random letters and Sling images to whomever pops up. Recipients of these unwanted images cannot view them unless they reciprocate. They can also long-press to hide senders from view. This is a useful feature, but frankly we'd prefer if users were required to authorize each other before Slinging. The nature of Slingshot means that you won't see a gross image without responding to the sender, but simply receiving a slew of unwanted messages can be a form of abuse in itself.

Sling Into My Mouth If Max's track record as a reviewer reveals anything, it's that he has no problem with gimmicks. After fooling around with Snapchat, he is convinced that it has real value to people and isn't just for sexting. He continues to vehemently argue (sometimes with co-author Michael Muchmore) the legitimacy of Vines as worthy, and even artful, forms of expression despite the 6-second gimmick.

The trouble is that Slingshot's gimmick isn't really that fun to use. Its draconian requirements fly in the face of traditional sharing apps; getting and giving likes on Instagram is nice, but liking wouldn't be fun if it were mandatory. It's also annoying to have to send a picture to unlock one that was sent to you, especially when you don't know what it contains ahead of time. It's difficult to imagine a way to make a virtue of Slingshot's restrictions, the way Viners and Twitterers have done with those social apps.

Facebook deserves credit for showing that it can think outside the social media box (that it created), but this awkward app feels too much like a wannabee, like your dad trying to be cool and hang out with your friends.

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About the Author

Max Eddy is a Software Analyst, taking a critical eye to Android apps and security services. He's also PCMag's foremost authority on weather stations and digital scrapbooking software. When not polishing his tinfoil hat or plumbing the depths of the Dark Web, he can be found working to discern the 100 Best Android Apps.
Prior to PCMag, Max wrote... See Full Bio

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Michael Muchmore is PC Magazine?s lead analyst for software and Web applications. A native New Yorker, he has at various times headed up PC Magazine?s coverage of Web development, enterprise software, and display technologies. Michael cowrote one of the first overviews of Web Services for a general audience. Before that he worked on PC Magazine?s S... See Full Bio

Slingshot (for Android)

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